Aakash IV Tablet Specs Officially Proposed By Government Of India

India’s low cost dream tablet Aakash is set to enter 4th generation with Aakash IV. The Indian government is pushing ahead with plans and posted the proposed technical specs of the Android-based Aakash IV on their web sites of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) for the stakeholders to comment.

The government wants to stick with the latest Android version 4.2.1 (Jelly Bean) but proposed that the tablet needs to be dual bootable through an external SD card to also offer the latest version of Ubuntu. The proposed specs says that the tablet should be 7 inches with at least 800×480 resolutions with 16 bit or higher colour depth, should be no more than 500g in weight. Dimensions suggested for Aakash IV are 7.5 X 5 X 0.75 inches , with a minimum of 1 GB DDR3 SDRAM, alongside at least 4GB internal storage which can be expanded by up to 32GB with an SD card, according to the proposals.

Battery capacity should be enough for at least 3 hours of online 720p video playback, minimum 4 hours of offline video playback and minimum 5 hours of web browsing. Also as a learning tool for students, there is also a strict requirement for USB, mouse, keyboard, and “all popular” 2G, 3G and 4G data dongles to be supported.

The Committee has decided that the proposed specifications be put up on the websites of Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and the Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY) to enable all interested stakeholders to give their comments on the proposed technical specifications of Aakash IV tablet over a period of two weeks.

Finalization of Technical Specifications of Aakash IV – Invitation of Comments from Stakeholders Aakash is a series of Android – based tablet computers produced by an initiative of Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. It is a low-cost tablet computer with a 7-inch touch screen. The device was developed as part of the country’s aim to link 25,000 colleges and 400 universities in an e-learning program. The cost of basic version for a student was only Rs.1500, which was around USD35. In July 2010, Honorable Minister of Human Resource Development, SriKapil Sibal unveiled a prototype of Aakash, which was later given out to 500 collegestudents to collect feedback. The tablet was officially launched as Aakash in NewDelhi on 5 October 2011. Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government ofIndia announced an upgraded second – generation model called Aakash 2 in April 2012. In this series, the new version of Aakash has been named as Aakash IV.

2.A Committee regarding continuous R&D and timely delivery of “Aakash” was constitutedby the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Ministryof Communications and IT, vide Order No.8(195)/2011-IPHW dated 22nd December,2011. A Sub-Committee comprising of technical experts has prepared the proposed vendor neutral Technical Specifications of Aakash IV, which inter-alia specify minimum hardware requirements, minimum software requirements, mechanical and environmental specifications, safety and other standards compliance, maintenance and serviceability, other features, contents of tablet package and testing criteria. These specifications have been developed with a view to have a low cost device. The Committee has decided that the proposed specifications be put up on the websites of Ministry of Human Resource Development(MHRD) and the Department of Electronics and Information Technology(DeitY) to enable all interested stakeholders to give their comments on the proposed technical specifications of Aakash IV device over a period of two weeks

3. The proposed technical specifications of Aakash IV can be viewed onhttp://mhrd.gov.in and http://deity.gov.in. The comments may be sent at the following address by July 12, 2013 (17:00 hrs.):Prof. Rajat MoonaDirector General C-DAC (Head Quarters)Pune University CampusGanesh KhindPune–411 007The contact telephone no. is 020-25696565. The comments may also be sent at the following e-mail IDs: moona@cdac.in and bkm@cdac.in.[/toggle]